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known now, when first indicated was very startling indeed. Remember what I told you in the first lecture on the Native Races of Russia-about the great Fin population, which I said there was reason to suppose occupied the whole of Russia. Now the Hungarian population, or the Magyars, are essentially Fin; and this was discovered in the last century by a comparison between the Magyar language and the Fin of Finland, and the Lap. There is no doubt whatever that language connects them; and their original Pagan superstitions connect them. And the physical form-where not modified by intermixture with the more southern populations of Europe -connects the Magyar with the Fins also. This fact is very instructive, as showing the amount of difference you may have within the range of one great family. The Hungarians are a strong, brave, civilized people; so are the Finlanders. But what are the

Laps? Although of the same stock, they are undersized, uncivilised, and in all respects a contrast to them; but you will remember the Magyars are Fins. The Magyars themselves do not like this alliance, and have tried very strongly and patriotically to get up what they think a better pedigree. But I think that the Fin pedigree is a very respectable one. They have tried, by investigations of language and the like, to make themselves of Circassian origin; and there are patriotic Magyars who think they came from Caucasus, and got their good looks from the Caucassians. They are neither Thibetian nor Circassian, but Fin, and as thoroughly intrusive in Europe as the Turk in Asia. You know what their nationality is from recent political circumstances. In respect to their language, they hold it with a great deal of zeal; in my mind with more zeal than discretion. In the time of the Emperor Joseph, they rightly and patriotically prevented the extension of the German language into Hungary, and got permission, or took permission, to conduct their own national

matters in the Hungarian language, and to print newspapers in it. But the fact we must remember is this, that it is the language of a minority. Out of the twelve millions of Hungary there are not more than four millions who are Magyars; and I think the greatest political blunder in the Hungarian war for independence was this, that while fighting for their own nationality, they forgot the nationality of the Slavomans and the populations about them. They wanted to rid themselves of Austrian influence, but they would impress Magyar influence upon the Slavonians, the Croatians, the Transylvanians, the Germans, and the other heterogeneous populations. It is the old story of people fighting for their own independence, and not caring for the independence of others. You will remember that Hungary does mean Magyar, and that the Magyars are a minority in Hungary itself. What is Hungary, politically speaking? It is really more Slavonic than aught else; numerically, it is decidedly Slavonic: in other matters, in civilisation possibly, the Slavonians are the lowest of the three populations, but numerically they are the majority.

A great ethnological fact is the magnitude of the Slavonic family; and another practical point is, that Austria is essentially a Slavonic country, rather than a German one. The present tendencies of the Slavonic population, whether in Russia, in Austria, in Poland, are important political elements. I will state what I believe to be the feeling of the Slavonic family, en masse, in respect to what they call the Slavonic nationality. The whole number of Slavonians of different divisions-Russian, Polish, Austrian, and the like -amounts to as near as can be eighty millions; a population larger by far than that of the Germans; larger by far than that of France; and, I incline to think, larger than that speaking the English language, England and America being included. The people who speak the Slavonic language, and hold Slavonic

sentiments, is not quite the largest family in the world, for the Chinese is spoken by more, and the Arabic possibly, and some Indian tongues by nearly as many; but in Europe the Slavonian population is an enormous ethnological element; think of eighty millions! The next point to observe is, how the nationalities of these eighty millions are distributed. In Russia alone you have fifty-two millions of Slavonians having a common nationalty, and, with few exceptions, a common creed,-the Greek Church. I leave you to judge what is the power of this "Slavonism,"-for that is the word we must coin. The next branch in importance is the Polish-about ten millions, hardly a fifth of what Russia gives. In civilisation the Poles are higher than the Russians. I am inclined to think, in strength of national character, physique, and warlike energy, they are stronger and more important; they have certainly had a more glorious history, though at present that history is in a decline. The Poles are Roman Catholics. Poland is spread at present over three large dominions. The bulk of it is in Russia, the next section in Austria, and the third in Prussia, where the Duchy of Posen is exclusively Polish. The third division is the Bohemian or Czekhs, who may be put in the way of literature and civilisation on the same high level as the Poles. I confess I sympathise strongly with the patriots of Bohemia in their attempt to give a national literature and civilisation to 50,000,000 people in Europe. The Germans, of course, do not like it, nor do the French; for whatever is added to the Slavonian element of Austria, subtracts from the German. There are, however, some awkward complications in the movement, for though the language is the same, the modes of writing it are different.

NATIONAL EDUCATION:

WHAT SHOULD IT BE?

BY THOMAS BAZLEY, ESQ., M. P.

[Submitted to the "Society for the Promotion of Social Science," at Liverpool, October, 1858.]

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UPON the necessity and importance of promoting an increase in the means of education in the United Kingdom, no difference of opinion can exist.

Various systems of education have been established and pursued in this country. Universities, colleges, and public and private schools, offer great and valuable advantages to those classes whose time and circumstances permit them to avail themselves of the educational benefits which may be obtained in those institutions, and which afford scientific, literary, religious, and secular teaching, according to the principles upon which they have been founded and are conducted. The existing scholastic establishments are, however, chiefly adapted to the wants of the affluent amongst us, and to others whose limited means enable them to participate in the benefits of cheap or gratuitous education of a high grade; but great multitudes of children of the indigent class are left unprovided with teaching or training; and in the midst of the refining, elevating, and highlycivilising tendencies in the upper and middle ranks of society, the unfortunate offspring of the poor,

being surrounded with vicious and vagrant temptations, possess little of parental sympathy, care, or training. Thus, as future heads of families and responsible members of the community, neglected children remain not only unprepared to perform the duties which devolve upon them as citizens, but, from the lack of adequate teaching, they may in reality become the pariahs of society; and instead of adding to the efficient, moral, and mental strength of the nation, they constitute the weakness of their country, and probably increase the paupers in our poorhouses, and the prisoners in our gaols. Even the union workhouses and prisons contain schools which have been there introduced for the removal of ignorance, and the prevention of that mental degradation usually attending the associations in those places; but the humble and honest workman who pays his poor-rates and other taxes, and who, in truth, is compelled to assist in giving pecuniary support towards the education of abandoned and dissolute children, is left unable to provide for his own children that boon of knowledge which he helps the less provident to procure. From prisons and poor-houses do not proceed virtuous, worthy, and large tax-paying members of society, and yet the state has expressly provided costly teaching for their inmates, whilst the poor but independent labourer, struggling with difficulties, seeks to avert the degradation that would secure education for his children from those sources. That poverty and vice should be the conditions which the state especially recognises for granting any partial plan of national education, is revolting. The legislature seems almost to have tempted the poor man from independence and duty, by telling him that when he has become necessitous, a rogue and a vagabond, his children shall be taught at the expense of the nation; and the great principle is disregarded, that good teaching should be rather the preventative than

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